Devils winger Dainius Zubrus started coming from Lithuania to north America for hockey tournaments when he was a teenager. It was then that he first became aware of Thanksgiving Day in America.

“I started coming here when I was 13 or 14, to Canada and the United States,” Zubrus recalled. “I remember, probably since I was 15 or 16, the football games and everything. It’s a good get-together for families to enjoy the football and turkey and all that stuff.”

Most of the Devils’ European-born players were unaware of the holiday. Before he left Sweden to play in Albany, N.Y., in 2010, Mattias Tedenby had never heard of Thanksgiving.

“Actually no. I’d never heard of it,” Tedenby said. “It’s actually a good thing. I like it, to be able to give thanks for all the stuff we have. To have thoughts about what you appreciate in your life. I like that.”

Jacob Josefson had heard of Thanksgiving, but didn’t know the details.

“Not really. I didn’t really know what it was,” Josefson said. “We don’t have that back home. Obviously I’ve seen it in TV shows and movies but I didn’t know what it was about. I know it’s a big thing over here with traditions.”

Patrik Elias didn’t find out about it until he left the Czech Republic in 1995.

“Living in America, Living the dream,” Elias said.

And Jaromir Jagr?

“I still don’t know,” Jagr joked.

For Andrei Loktionov, who grew up in Russia, he first heard about Thanksgiving while playing junior hockey in Windsor, Ontario, in 2008.

“I knew after I came here,” Loktionov said. “It’s a family day. I was living with my billet mom. Her two daughters and her husband told me it’s a family day and everybody was eating turkey.”